An educator's guide to sustainability with young learners

Math in the Garden

Before teaching science, I taught math. Today’s post, therefore, is dedicated to those of you who teach math and want your curriculum to have a real-life connection.

The botanical garden at UC Berkeley, along with the Lawrence Hall of Science, has developed a great resource called Math in the Garden to do exactly that: teach math outdoors, in the context of a garden. To learn more, go to their sample page. There, you will find a standards chart and two sample activities. The Hand Span activity looks great for early learners who are just starting to begin study of measurement. The standards chart breaks down the activities by age, math topic, and science topic.

Then, today when I was searching for the link to Math in the Garden, I found an about.com page with information about other math in the garden activities you might do with students of varying ages, designed to help parents who are homeschooling. I have not read all of the activities, but I loved the link to Vegetable Garden, a conceptual problem designed for early fractions practice. Find the full page here.

What other math resources are you familiar with that link the mathematics standards to nature and sustainability?